The Cult of the Black Virgin

by Serena Janes

  One look at Luc and I just rolled onto my back and gave up my entire self!

  As she was trying to sort out the warring factions in her head, she sensed Luc quietly moving into a pew directly behind her. He leaned forward and whispered discreetly near her ear. All thoughts of souls—intact or crumbling—flew out of her mind as she heard the words that were meant for her alone.

  “Meet me here at one. Outside, under the bell tower. Look for the company van. I’ll drive by and pick you up. One o’clock.”

  She shivered in the chill air as, without thinking, she nodded. Her body willed it.

  If she had been a religious woman, or even a moral woman, she would have hated herself for that nod. Instead, she flushed with excitement. Then she looked across the room at Edward and Glenda, holding hands as they examined the altar, and the emotions of a moment before flooded back over her—guilt, and horror, at what she was about to do. At her own weakness. Her sick soul.

  Luc left the pew as soon as he saw her nod, but Jo stayed seated until everyone trickled past Marcie, still kneeling in prayer. Then she got up and followed the procession. Outside, they all stopped to peer up into the church’s hollow bell tower. It was open at the bottom and they could look up through the middle to the bells hanging at the top. Most people found it fascinating, and took pictures. Jo felt nothing. Thought nothing. She felt as hollow as the tower.

  Then she followed the others numbly through the streets of the thirteen-hundred-year-old town.

  When their tour was over, Luc excused himself for the rest of the day, promising he would join everyone for Happy Hour. He recommended several local cafes for lunch, and strode away, flashing the group what Jo knew was his public smile.

  Edward and Glenda chose a charming boulangerie for lunch, and Jo enjoyed a quick meal with the couple who, she realized, had represented her conscience over the past week. But Luc once again proved to be too strong for all of them. As she talked pleasantly to the Evans’s, she was thinking that this afternoon would likely be the last time she and Luc would be together. There was no more room in the schedule for privacy. And in two days she would be boarding the train north with everyone else to catch her flight out of Paris.

  The thought confirmed the rightness of what she was about to do. It would be the last time.

  And no one will know.

  As soon as she sat down she explained to Edward and Glenda that she couldn’t stay long because she had a lot of shopping to do. She chatted about what she planned to buy, lying about James having a birthday soon. As she ate her chicken salad she kept nattering on, hoping the Evans would think she was excited because she was looking forward to shopping. But it wasn’t thoughts of what lay in the local shops that caused the blood to rush to her cheeks and her eyes to sparkle.

  A few minutes before one o’clock she jumped up and said goodbye, promising she’d be back at the gîte in a few hours, laden with goodies. The look on Edward and Glenda’s faces was so trusting that she felt another pang of remorse. But she pushed it aside as she quickly used the toilet and brushed her teeth.

  Under the brim of her straw hat, behind her dark glasses, Jo tried to look disinterested as she stood below the hollow bell tower, watching for Luc. She couldn’t help rubbing the big stone of her ring in agitation. She didn’t want any of the group to see her standing there, looking like a common prostitute.

  Oh Christ! Quit the dramatics—you do not look like, nor have you been acting like, a street hooker. You have, instead, been behaving like the worst sort of whore on the planet. Dishonest. And dumb, too.

  She sighed, frustrated that the violence of her internal struggle didn’t seem to be weakening. She tried to think about something else—something concrete—like shopping. She wondered if she’d have time to buy anything at all.

  There he is!

  Her heart leapt into her throat when she spotted the van. Without checking for cars she ran across the street, causing a motorist to brake suddenly and lean on his horn. She paid him no attention as she watched Luc bend over and open the passenger door. But she did notice that Luc looked harried as he pulled out into traffic and headed away from the town center. They hadn’t even said hello to each other, and as they drove, there seemed to be nothing else to say. Her heart was hammering in fear and excitement, uncertainty and a fierce love for this man to whom she was about to give three precious, stolen hours of her life.

  Is it love? Am I really thinking this is love? I already have love. Real love. Lots of it. But lust too is a jewel.

  Her scrambled thoughts alarmed her.

  When did I stop thinking lust and thinking love? Oh be careful, be so careful…

  She glanced quickly at Luc as he maneuvered the car, his eyes never leaving the road. Her heart beat even faster. She felt a stab of anxiety. Was she falling in love with her French lover?

  Be so, so careful…

  After fighting heavy traffic for about five minutes he pulled off to a side road, then soon made another turn onto a deserted gravel lane. There seemed to be nothing around in any direction except empty fields and copses of small trees. He parked on a flat spot, and shut off the motor. Neither spoke. Jo was uncomfortable at their silence, but she didn’t know how to break it. He sat still and stared straight ahead, unreadable.

  Finally, he let out a long breath. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, he turned to her and said, grimly, “Well, Joanna. Here we are. Is this going to be our last time?”

  She was dumbfounded. She looked at his hands, tension showing in every finger, and noticed with a shock that his wedding ring was gone. In its place was a band of pale, soft skin. She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted her.

  “Do you plan to just go home after we make love this one last time—confess to your boyfriend, ask him to forgive you? Carry on like nothing happened? Or maybe say nothing? Marry him and keep your secret forever?”

  She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Then she realized that if she couldn’t see Luc again, she didn’t care what happened after today. The new tone in his voice caused her body to tense. She was afraid of the words this last time. They struck her as ominous, like the dream she’d had last night.

  He was waiting for her to speak, so she had to say something. She looked at his eyes, narrowed and dark.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m so completely in the here and now. I haven’t thought of the future at all. I can’t think of anything but today.”

  He frowned. “Yes. Well. I have been thinking beyond today.” He opened the door of the van. “Come on.”

  He got out, pulled a blanket from behind the seat, and slammed the door shut. She picked up her purse and followed him through a small planting of trees to an enclosed grassy area. He dropped the blanket and turned to her, an antagonistic expression on his face. His mouth was hard. In one movement he pulled his shirt up and over his head, and threw it on the grass.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  His words, and their tone, alarmed her. For the past two days she’d barely contained her excitement at the prospect of being with him again, but now she hung back, unsure of what was happening. She wondered if she should be frightened. Something had changed.

  “Please, Joanna,” he said in a softer voice. “Your clothes.” His still seemed angry, but her fear began to disappear. He was so beautiful, his smooth muscular body immediately arousing her. Despite her uncertainty, she knew she would still do anything he asked. She hadn’t followed him this far to get cold feet now.

  His face didn’t soften as he watched her remove her top, uncovering the exquisite French-made bra James had bought her in Paris. Then her skirt came down, revealing the matching panties. She threw her clothing to the side, met his gaze defiantly, and unclasped the bra, adding it to the pile. Slowly, eyes never leaving his, she lowered her panties and stepped out of them. He remained perfectly still, making no move to touch her.

  She stood there watching him in the dappled sunlight, shiverin
g a little in the unexpected breeze, certain she could feel his gaze tracking her body.

  Finally, he spoke, voice low and husky. “Joanna, I’m too excited right now.” He undid his zipper, then his button and belt. “I need you to help me, or I’ll be good for nothing.”

  He sounded different, strained, and she thought she saw a faraway look in his eyes.

  He reached for one of her hands and placed it on his erect cock. She knew what he wanted, and she pulled him free from his shorts and kneeled down in front of him.

  Her anxiety was quickly replaced by the excitement of being able to touch him, taste him the way she hadn’t been able to before, when he was in control. She’d been dreaming of this all week, and her mouth filled with saliva. She wanted his cock in her mouth.

  His cock, like the rest of him, was long and thick and hard and beautiful. The skin was smooth and taut and shiny. She pulled his shorts down over his hips until they were around his ankles. Stepping out of them, he spread his feet and planted them firmly in the grassy ground. He gave a low moan as she licked the swollen tip, with its bead of wetness, savoring its salty, slightly musky taste. She licked delicately, slowly, and then moved her tongue down the full length of him. With one hand she caressed his scrotum as she kept licking and kissing him lightly until he said, “Suck it!” So she opened her mouth and took him fully, as far and as deep as she could. She heard him gasp.

  With both hands he grabbed her hair and began to move her head in the way he wanted, thrusting. Then, suddenly, he stopped, shuddering, muttering a few words of French as his come rocketed down her throat, almost choking her. She swallowed as fast as she could. It was all over so quickly that she’d barely begun to enjoy her own pleasure.

  He sank to his knees and embraced her. They remained that way for several minutes until his breathing steadied.

  “Mon Dieu! I needed you right away. I’m sorry for being rough. Did I hurt you? Did I pull your hair?”

  “No. Don’t apologize. I loved it,” she replied truthfully.

  He reached behind her for the blanket, and she helped him spread it on the ground before they fell together in a tangle.

  Acutely aware that this was the last time she would be alone with him, ever, Jo grew tender. She stroked the smooth skin of his body, thrilling at how soft it was beneath her fingertips. He wore nothing but the bandana, loosely tied around his neck. She kissed the damp skin under the knot. She caressed his neck, his chest, his belly. The smoothest spots were those two delicately textured areas that lay on each side of his stomach, between the hipbone and the line of pubic hair. She lowered her head to kiss him there, once on each side, where the skin was palest. She kissed his navel, and the hairline that ran up from his belly to the sternum. She licked his nipples, kissed his neck, relishing the light salty taste of his skin.

  Settling down beside him, lightly drawing her fingertips over his face, touching his lips, his nose, his ears, tracing the arc of his fine eyebrows, the line where smooth skin left off into rough stubble, she marveled at his features as he lay still and quiet. Letting her love him. His eyes remained shut, and she kissed his eyelids, his lashes.

  With his eyes closed, he looked quite different. Much of the energy he radiated was gone. It was his eyes that held it, Jo realized. And now she saw how tired he looked. He, too, had dark circles under his eyes. She wondered that she hadn’t noticed them before. The thin skin of his eyelids was pale and slightly creased, making him look a little vulnerable. Her heart expanded as she kissed his eyes again.

  Then something very odd happened. For the first time in her life, Joanna Clifford understood what it felt like to want to have a child. Suddenly she felt a desire to be pregnant.

  But not by James.

  By Luc.

  She began to shake.

  Marriage and starting a family with James had been in the cards after only a few months of meeting him. It was just that she’d been feeling particularly ambivalent about it as the time grew closer. He was rushing her. And in her heart of hearts she wasn’t sure if she would ever be completely ready. But then she thought that maybe nobody was. They just went into it on faith.

  But now, now she felt a genuine desire to have a child. Luc’s child. Her and Luc’s child. An extraordinary child, conceived out of the extraordinary connection made by its parents.

  Any question of whether she really wanted a child with Luc was moot—her body willed it. She herself had little choice. Her previous hesitations around pregnancy were overruled by the most overpowering natural forces in the world—the desire to have her lover plant himself inside her. The desire to have him take control of her body—as he already had control of her heart and mind—and place his seed inside her to grow their love child.

  She remembered how she had once scoffed at the outdated notion that the sex act for men was complete once it was complete, but for women wasn’t truly over until the conception, delivery, and nursing of a healthy child. She’d read this in her mother’s old medical book, written in the 1940’s. Sixty years later, armed with sex education classes and excellent birth control, she chose when and how she wanted to have sex. She belonged to the second generation of liberated women who were happily free from the restrictions of the historical past, and she took for granted that she could treat sex as casually as men did, if she chose to.

  But now, she saw sex differently. Sex with Luc could move even further towards becoming the most significant event in her life if she bore his child. She flushed at the idea, awed by the overwhelming emotion that washed over her. Luckily she hadn’t stopped her contraception before she left for France. Even though James had suggested that it might be time to try to conceive, Jo just couldn’t bring herself to stop taking the little pink pills that ensured her freedom.

  Lucky. Lucky. Otherwise I might have done something truly stupid, even more spectacularly stupid than what I’ve already done.

  She shook her head at this revelation, and tried to focus on what she had right now. Luc was lying stretched out in front of her, naked, and they had another few hours together.

  Lust is a valuable gift, like a jewel. Hold onto that, you idiot. Only that. That’s all you get. Be grateful for it.

  And she was grateful—he was so beautiful. She didn’t ever want to stop looking, and touching. And she wanted to smell and taste him, too, so she bent her lips to his head, running the tip of her tongue along his hairline, his eyebrows, his lashes, cheeks, ending with a kiss on his mouth which he returned with such tenderness that she wanted to die. Nothing else in her life had been, or ever would be, as precious as this moment, she thought, as she swore she could feel her heart grow larger in her chest. This was perfect bliss. She’d call it love, if…

  Maybe it was a mistake, but she decided to speak. If this was to be their last time, she needed to tell him what he meant to her.

  She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I’m so happy right now I could die. After what you’ve made me feel these past few days, I could happily die right now and have no regrets. I don’t know what that means, but I know it’s true.”

  That didn’t come out exactly the way she intended, but it was said.

  He opened his eyes and pulled back to look up at her, his face giving no hint of his thoughts. For a moment he said nothing. Then he spoke, slowly. “Joanna, there’s something important I’m going to ask you now.”

  He paused and she felt her heart stop. Her stomach clenched, not in pleasure, but in fear. She held her breath.

  “I had the ring removed.” He held his left hand up in front of her face, fingers splayed.

  “Yes. I saw.” Her voice was hushed. That white ring of pale flesh moved her more profoundly than she could have imagined.

  “I want you, Joanna. I want you to come away with me. The day after tomorrow, after I finish this contract.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief as he spoke.

  “We need to be together. We can’t just separate after today. I will not watch you get on a
train and disappear.”

  The look in his eyes was tender but stern, his voice somber. She stared back at him, shocked—her response delayed.

  She could only think, calmly, slowly, Well—this is it. This is what I get for my sins. More than I could ever expect. And it’s much too much. I thought I would do anything for him. And now he’s giving me the chance.

  Was this really what she wanted to hear from her lover of just one week?

  She didn’t know.

  Although she thought she sounded calm, her voice cracked. “Go away where? How? Have you thought this through, are you serious?”

  A million questions presented themselves at once. What was he asking her to do? Run off with him for a tryst? Only to throw her back when he was done with her? Or was he as willing to do anything for her, as she was for him? Did he want to marry her? Did he even know what he wanted? How could he? They barely knew each other.

  She panicked and tried to sit up, but he pulled her back down onto the blanket and rolled her onto her back, straddling her body with his. He roughly pinned her hands on the ground alongside her head. She saw anger and fear and something like resignation in his face.

  “Listen to me,” he said loudly, pressing his face close to hers. “I know I’m forcing a difficult decision onto you, but don’t tell me that you plan to kiss me goodbye today, or tomorrow, or on Monday, and walk away forever. Do not tell me that! I know it would be a lie! Wouldn’t it?”

  Alarmed to be backed into a corner like this, she was also aroused by the strength of his body pinning hers to the blanket, the force of his words, and the proposal itself. How could she have anticipated this? That her lover might want her as much as she wanted him?

  In a small voice, she struggled to speak. “I don’t know. I can’t say what I might or might not do tonight, or tomorrow. I can’t see anything beyond this moment. Ow—you’re hurting me.” She tried to twist free of his grasp.